Abstract—Currently China is promoting thestrategic restructuring of coal enterprises and coal resources have beenintegrated to some degree. However, with the integration of coal resources, theintegration of coal logistics resources is also imminent. This paper proposesto build a four-gradient coal logistics network and particularly deals with thecritical problem of selecting the location of coal regional distributioncenters with the Baumol-Wolfe Model.

Keywords-coal logistics network;location of distribution center;  Baumol-Wolfe Model

1. Introduction 

Coalis one of China’s primary energy resources and important strategic materials.The enormous quantity of coal products requires a large number of logisticsactivities. Strategic restructuring of coal enterprises is being vigorouslypromoted in China currently, in which large coal enterprises are improving boththe integration of coal and their overall competitiveness by merging small coalenterprises or consolidating with others. However, the demands of coal marketcan no longer be satisfied by the current coal logistics operation due to theimpacts of traditional management modes or the inevitable obstruction producedby integration. Therefore, the existing coal logistics network needs to befurther optimized. 

Afour-gradient coal logistics network proposed in this paper is helpful to thoselarge coal enterprises that have experienced an integration of coal resourcesbut not yet built up an effective coal logistics network, aiming at the optimizationof coal logistics operation mode and the reduction of coal enterprises’ costs.The coal flow networkhas beenplanned systematically and an effective method called Baumol-Wolfe Model hasalso been adopted to support the location of the critical facility.